On Sunday night, Ulrich Siegmund, the lead candidate for the AfD celebrated a historic victory in a crucial state election in Germany. Among those quick to congratulate him were Elon Musk, Donald Trump, who posted a screenshot of the election projections, and Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
Siegmund did not waste time in thanking Musk for his support, adding that he would welcome the opportunity for further cooperation with the world’s richest man, whose rhetoric, publications like the Guardian and Democracy Now have noted, sometimes mirrors Nazi and white supremacist theories.
The alignment of the powers celebrating this victory should cast a chill down the spine of all those who support a European project – or, indeed, democratic values – and who have not erased the reality of the second world war from their memories.
Metamorphosis of the far-right into a coalition for collapse
More than a textbook far-right movement, this appears to be a global coalition of movements with diverse objectives and ideologies. Uniting under an exclusionary and exploitative flag, their only commonality is a vision that requires the absence of a shared future for the lives they consider expendable. This motley crew includes traditional authoritarians as well as religious survivalists, tech oligarchs, racial supremacists and criminal networks goose-stepping in synchronisation to obtain complete impunity through the weaponisation of wealth, press, ideology and technology.
Global democratic institutions such the ICJ, the UN and even the European Union represent a threat and, therefore, must be defanged and divided. This is done by corrupting, defunding or delegitimising their powers. Collapse of human society is not to be avoided but is actively sought.
Discriminatory policies and behaviour from world leaders of countries that were traditionally considered partners, a press at the mercy of the owner’s agenda and unregulated social media spouting hate and lies under the guise of news have shifted the Overton window to a point where the far-right is now increasingly normalised. Many people in France who would not have voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen would have no qualms now in voting for his daughter, Marine Le Pen, whose ideas remain just as monstrous as those of her father, but are packaged in more acceptable clothes.
The opinion of far-right research experts
Since this ‘Coalition for Collapse’ transcends borders, individual governments trying to limit it are often frustrated in their efforts. Both Naomi Klein and Sarah Kendzior have written extensively about this phenomenon and diagnose the rise of this version of the far-right as an existential threat. In her book End Times Fascism, written with co-author Astra Taylor, Klein frames it as a dangerous intersection between tech oligarch escapism, Christian nationalism, and far-right authoritarianism. Instead of fixing the world, according to Klein, the billionaire elites in control are resigned to Armageddon-style outcomes with themselves the sole survivors.
Kendzior, an expert on authoritarian regimes, on the other hand, argues that leaders such as Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu are all part of a predatory transnational criminal network, executing a controlled demolition of democracy for personal profit. They, too, have a complete disregard for lives other than their own.
Gil Duran, an investigative journalist, recently published Nerd Reich, a book that provides the link between the two theories: a deliberate decades-long campaign by billionaire tech executives to replace elected democracies protecting public interests with unregulated corporate autocracies, allowing them to act with complete impunity and absolute power.
Duran traces this ideology back to the far-right monarchist philosopher Curtis Yarvin. Inspired by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson’s book, The Sovereign Individual, he proposed the concept of multiple anti-democratic ‘network states’, which inspired tech billionaires with a penchant for supremacist and anti-egalitarian ideas like Peter Thiel, Musk and Marc Andreessen. Using their immense wealth, cryptocurrency and algorithmic manipulation models, Duran argues they have systematically worked at dismantling public trust in government and placed their sycophants in key national and international positions.
How to dismantle the far-right movement?
All three theories converge on a single terrible truth: modern authoritarianism, instead of being defined by traditional nationalistic pride, views lives other than its own as entirely disposable. And while each proposes a slightly different solution, they also all unite in believing that a reset is possible.
Klein believes in breaking the narrative of inevitable and hopeless doom, replacing it with a global life-affirming movement. With current institutions too compromised and corrupted, Kendzior also believes in a united citizen’s initiative, but she focuses on solidarity, mutual aid and a firm refusal to comply or obey with the demands of the autocracy. Duran suggests aggressively regulating algorithmic propaganda and treating the consolidated power of immense wealth as a structural threat to national security.
Amidst a backdrop of this week’s grim headlines, the AfD gaining ground in Germany, masked troops led by violent men in Dover treated with impunity – while grandmothers holding anti-genocide signs are being tried as terrorists – the existence of viable solutions proposed by these three experts offers a welcome sign of hope.
What remains to be seen is whether the people can unite into a citizen’s movement for peace. And whether the governments they have elected can resist the pull of billionaire influence and implement the regulations, checks and controls on the power wielded by tech barons and the ultra-wealthy that are so sorely and urgently needed.
